Category Archives: Blog

Try preparing some lupin(i) beans at home with salt and lemon…but you’ll need a lot of patience, since it’s a long process to get them just right…

Today, when browsing through the new book section of my favorite book store in Beirut, I noticed that one of the books–with a whirling dervish on cover–was about the history of Sufism in Syria–as well as Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine. Needless to say, I bought the book…

Soul receives from soul that knowledge,
therefore not by book nor from tongue.
If knowledge of mysteries come after emptiness of mind,
that is illumination of heart.

— Rumi

Generations rush by, while
the stars stay still, without a splash…

Love more the star region reflected,
less the moving medium.

— Rumi

For some reason, while enjoying my first cup of coffee this morning, I was thinking about my last trip to Konya to visit the tomb of Rumi for Shab-i Arus. After attending the official ceremony for the anniversary of this death–his “Wedding Night”–I took the travelers whom I had brought to his mausoleum (türbe) to visit the caves and fairy chimneys of Cappadocia. We climbed past this red-topped mosque and its slender minaret as the sun was setting on Mt. Erciyes–but to me it looked like the sun was just waking up…

The inner consciousness
of the saint
is the true mosque
where all should worship,
God lives there.

— Rumi

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture…

— Rumi

I got beat today in fussball at St. Jude’s–not creamed–just beat. And I didn’t throw the game–I really gave it my all. While I was trading goals with the ten year old who finally beat me, a mother pointed to the child of another and asked, “What’s her name?”

“Oh, he’s a boy, not a girl,” the other mother said, handing her son a dinosaur and telling us his name.

“I’m so sorry, that keeps happening, because none of our children have any hair!” the first mother said. We all smiled, since it was a mistake we had all made–at one time or another. Without hair, it’s hard to tell boys apart from girls at such a young age.

A few minutes later, one of the fathers started showing me photos of his three-year old daughter in his phone.

“That’s me, that’s me!” his daughter said in Arabic, grabbing the iphone, and scrolling through the photos with her tiny pinky finger like a pro.

“Look, look–this is me–me with hair,” she said, giggling as her dad began massaging her smooth, bald head…

Campus was bouncing today–with music blaring, and teenagers running in every direction. High school students from all over Lebanon were brought to the soccer/football field today for a range of activities–and we could even hear the music under the water of the indoor pool and up the hill on the street.

Each student had on a t-shirt with the name of their town written on the back, and though they were all from different villages and cities–they all seemed to be intermingling and having a good time. At one point, some of the girls even started a Conga line, as you can see in the photo above…

Iranian FM Zarif discusses his meeting with Secretary Kerry upon his return to Iran (English subtitles)…

Though the waves were too rowdy for swimming today, the sun was shining just fine…

Today in Beirut, water from the sea was flowing into the tunnels leading to the beach. Due to the rough seas, we swimmers were forced to swim in the indoor pool instead. Swimming with the turtles will just have to wait…I wonder how those turtles are putting up with the big waves…

You are in deep waters now,
of life’s blazing fire.
Why do you worry?

— Rumi

I just got back from volunteering at St. Jude’s in Beirut, which is why I haven’t posted anything all day. Even though I’ve been volunteering there for a year, I still look forward to seeing the kids each week, as if I just started volunteering.

Today, a four and half year old boy from Dahiyeh entered the playroom wearing a t-shirt that said: ALWAYS HAPPY SPIRIT. When I asked his mother, draped in a black chador from head to toe, if she knew what his shirt said, she shook her head. “We don’t know English,” she said, asking me to translate. When I translated these three words for her into Arabic, she finally smiled, took a deep breath, and sat down.

While her son and I were playing with these toy dinosaurs, he gave the T-Rex some french fries–before making it play the piano with its feet. Though he was bald and quite ill, you would never know from the enthusiasm with which he was playing with his toys just how much he was suffering. And every time I looked at him across the table, I saw written in big letters on his shirt: ALWAYS HAPPY SPIRIT.

Life is an island, rocks are its desires, trees its dreams, and flowers its loneliness,
and it is in the middle of an ocean of solitude and seclusion.

Your life, my friend, is an island separated from all other islands and continents. Regardless of how many boats you send to other shores or how many ships arrive upon your shores, you yourself are an island separated by its own pains, secluded in its happiness and far away in its compassion and hidden in its secrets and mysteries…

— Khalil Gibran